Det Danske Filminstitut: First World War Films

>> View collection The Danish Film Institute gives access to documentary footage and films as well as fiction films from the period 1914-1918. The documentary collection contains both general "news" items from the period, with events and actuality items, but also some of the earliest footage from the German captured territories in Northern France and Prussia. Since Denmark was not directly involved in the war, most of the directly war related films are Danish versions of films from other countries. However, the KRIGSBILLEDER I-VII (1914) are among the earliest images from the war. The fiction film collection gives an impression of different genres during the WWI period and gives a general insight into what met the audiences attending the movies during the war. Denmark, and especially the Nordisk Film Co., was one of the dominant film industries internationally in the early 1910s. The long feature film format had become the standard for motion picture entertainment in the years preceding the First World War, and Nordisk Film was a dominant vertically integrated company with substantial theatrical investments in Central Europe. Many of the films are typical entertainment films, but a few have a strong pacifist message, among them PRO PATRIA, PAX ÆTERNA and NED MED VAABNENE, which led to the postponement of their release until later in, or after, the war.